Changing Pictures with AlterPod

Before you begin
It is a good idea to create a folder structure for your iPod modding session. To do this, create a folder anywhere on your computer, and create the following subfolders.

N.B. When following this Tutorial, it's probably a good idea to just change a single image, You can let loose on all the other ones when you are comfortable with the alterPod workflow.

Step 1 - Backing up your iPod's Firmware Partition
Open the alterPod application with a double-click as you would with any other Mac application. After a bounce or two, you should be presented with the alterPod window. You will notice that there are four tabs. We will begin with the first tab, which is named "Firmware", and divided into three sections.

Make sure that your iPod is connected and mounted on the Desktop

Select your iPod from the popup menu in the Firmware tab. If the popup menu says "No iPod's Found" click the Rescan button.

In the section entitled "Firmware Backup" click "Choose" to select a Destination Folder for your iPod's firmware partition. Navigate to and select the folder named "FIRMWARE" that you created earlier.

Click "Extract". This will create a file named "ipod_firmware_backup" in the "FIRMWARE" folder.

Step 2 - Duplicating your iPod's Firmware backup file
Create a duplicate of the backup file so that you will always have a copy of the original backup file just in case anything goes wrong.

Place the duplicate backup file into the folder named "firmware copy". This is the firmware file that we will be editing.

Step 3 - Reading the Resources from your Firmware File
All of your iPod's images and strings, are hidden away as resources in the Firmware file.

Select the "Resources" Tab.

In the section entitled "Read Resources" select the Firmware file to be read. This should be the file named "ipod_firmware_backup" that is in the folder named "firmware copy"

Select the "resources" folder from the folders you created earlier, as the destination for the resources.

Click "Read". This process may take a few minutes.

alterPod will extract the resources and place them in two new folders in the "resources" folder. These two new folders are names "ipod.raw" and "ipod". The files in ipod.raw are all .rsrc files and will be of little use to most users.

The ipod.raw directory can also be used as a backup.
If you don't change anything in the ipod.raw directory, in theory, running writing
the ipod.raw directory back to the firmware file should restore your firmware to exactly
what it was when the resources were extracted, no matter what changes you've made using alterPod.

Look in the folder named "ipod" and you will see several files. The *.txt files are the string's, and the *.pgm files are the images. If you have an iPod Photo, your images will be *.ppm files.

You will also see a document named "alterPod-prep.txt". This file contains important information that will be required in later stages of this tutorial. Please do not delete or edit it.

Step 4 - Viewing and Editing the Pictures
The best way to view your images is to open GraphicConverter and choose "Browse Folder" from the file menu. Select the "ipod" folder, and you should see all of the firmware images.

You can use any image editor of your choice to edit your images, as long as you follow three simple rules.

Rule 1: Don't change the name of the image file, alterpod uses the filename to place it in the correct position in the Firmware file.

Rule 2: Don't change the physical dimension's of the images, alterPod may be unable to re-insert the images into the firmware file if you change the physical dimensions.

Rule 3: Save your final image as a *.pgm (or *.ppm if it's a colour image for an iPod Photo) *.pgm files must be saved with the BINARY option, and not as ASCII pgm's

If you use an image editor that can't save *.pgm or *.ppm files, you can open almost any image format with GraphicConverter, and resave them in the correct format.

Save your modified image in the folder named "modpics". You will also need to copy the "alterPod-prep.txt" file, that was mentioned earlier, in to the "modpics" folder.

Step 5 - Preparing your modified image
Before we can insert your modifed image into the firmware file, we need to prepare it into a .rsrc file.

Select the "Preparation" tab in alterPod

In the "Prepare Single Resource" section, Select the newly edited image (it's in the "modpics" folder) as the Resource.

Select the "modpics raw" folder as the Destination.

Click "Prepare"

Your image will be converted to a *.rsrc file and placed in the "modpics raw" folder.

If you are changing multiple images, use these instructions.

Select the "Preparation" tab in alterPod.

In the "Prepare Multiple Resource" section, Select the modpics" folder, this should contain your edited image files.

Selct the "modpics raw" folder as the Destination.

Click "Prepare"

All of the images and strings in the "modpics" folder will be converted to *.rsrc files and placed in the "modpics raw" folder.

Step 6 - Writing the Resources to the firmware file.
Now that we have prepared our image files into *.rsrc files, we need to write them back into the Firmware.

Select the "Resources" tab in alterPod

In the "Write Resources" section, select the "modpics raw" folder that contains your new *.rsrc files as the Source Folder.

Select your the "ipod_firmware_backup" file in the folder "Firmware copy"

Click "Write". This may take a few minutes.

The *.rsrc files will be written back into the firmware file.

Step 7 - Restoring the firmware to the iPod
This is the final step, where we will restore the firmware back to the iPod, so that you can see your changes.

Select the "Firmware" tab in alterPod

Make sure you iPod is mounted on the Desktop, and select it from the popup list.

In the "Firmware Restore" section, select the "ipod_firmware_backup" file from the "Firmware copy" folder.

Click "Restore" This may take a few minutes.

alterPod should have written your firmware file back to the iPod. You may now quit alterPod, disconnect your iPod, and check out your creativity.

If your iPod fails to display your edited image, it may be neccessary to restart it, you can do this by holding the "menu" and "play" buttons on your iPod simultaneously.